Sleeping Beauty's Keeper
by underthestars93
Summary: Sleeping Beauty… Her story is known around the world because of the Brothers Grimm. She was cursed, pricked her finger on a spindle and fell asleep for a hundred years before being awakened by the Prince and lived happily ever after. But what if she never awoke from the Prince's kiss and remained asleep for hundreds of years?


_Sleeping Beauty… Her story is known around the world because of the Brothers Grimm. She was cursed, pricked her finger on a spindle and fell asleep for a hundred years before being awakened by the Prince and lived happily ever after. But what if she never awoke from the Prince's kiss and remained asleep for hundreds of years, long past even when the curse had been lifted from the rest of the castle? My name is Sebastian Kepler and I, along with all of my ancestors before me, have been tasked with guarding one of the world's best kept secrets. I am Sleeping Beauty's keeper._

I glance out the streaky window up at the sky, noticing that a storm is brewing out over the water. I really should get around to cleaning the windows around here; I can guarantee that practically every single other one needs just as much elbow grease. Delaying chores had been my original plan for the day, but with the storm rolling in soon I couldn't exactly spend the day outside roaming around the beachside grounds of the house.

I wish I could say that this place belonged to my family, but it didn't. It belonged to my employers, some old money family whose name had been lost way before I was born. I was told that at one point for a while the princess was kept at the castle while my ancestor watched over her, but that must have changed ages ago; my grandfather would have sworn on his life that we had been at this new, much more inconspicuous property for many generations. The old castle is just up the road from where I now live. I guess my ancestors didn't want to go very far, but the little house is hidden behind a thick layer of forest brush. In all the time I've lived here I've never seen anyone I didn't wish to see.

I've never met the mystery people who pay the bills for this place, and neither had my father, or his father, or his father's father. Anyway, you get the picture. The family who employs us are ghosts, with the only clue that they once existed being the teenaged girl who slept on the bed for eternity. Sleeping Beauty.

I don't like to spend much time around her; the girl who has no real name, only a moniker created who knows how long ago after her story had been told. I do it out respect; if I were under a spell of eternal sleep I wouldn't watch some guy staring at me either. In the few times I have seen her, she's quite pretty and looks everything and even more than the fairy tales and stories suggest. It's quite amazing to think how she's been lying here asleep for the last couple of hundred years, yet doesn't seem to look any older than the age the Brothers Grimm recorded her to be.

There's a loud crack of thunder and I turn from the window, leaving the stormy beachside behind me as I walk out into the hallway. Perhaps it may be because I was just thinking of her, but somehow I manage to soon find myself standing outside Sleeping Beauty's door. I pause outside of it for a few seconds when I think I hear a rustling sound come from within the room. Did I forget to close a window the last time I was in here? That must be the case; I've been the only one in the house since my father died last year.

I shake my head and walk into the girl's bedroom quietly. It's rather dark in here – the storm's clouds have stopped most of the natural light from streaming in through the large window, so I decide to light a couple of candles and place them around the room. I could turn on the lamp next to the princess's bed, but I don't want to; there's something about using electricity in this particular room which bothers me. It doesn't seem right – she never had it during her time, so why should it be used around her now?

As I carry a lit candle towards where Sleeping Beauty lies, I stop dead in my tracks. The bed is empty. Where is she? I glance around the room; it's still too dark for me to see much around me. I look back at the bed. Could she have fallen off?

I rush over to the bed and set the candle down on a table next to it before glancing over to the side of the bed I can't see. She's not there.

"Oh no, no, no, no, no." I say and grab my head with my hands. "This cannot be happening."

I've lost Sleeping Beauty. How could I have lost Sleeping Beauty? She never moves!

"And who might you be?" I hear a voice say from behind me.

I spin around to see a shadowy figure holding a fire poker creep out from the darkness. It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust, but soon I see the golden blonde hair, the pale white skin, the rosy red lips. It's Sleeping Beauty. She's awake!

She lunges towards me and the fire poker is right under my chin. I raise my arms up in surrender.

"I ask'd you a question. Your name?" Her voice is cold and steely, quite scary actually.

"My… my name is Sebastian Kepler."

"What is't you want?" Sleeping Beauty pushes the poker against the bottom of my jaw bone. The metal feels cool to the touch and I have to suppress a shiver.

"I live here. My family's lived here for centuries. I don't want—"

"You speak no truths!" she says and grabs me by my shirt collar before pulling me in close to her face. "'Tis impossible that you have lived here for such a length. Do you not know who I am? I am Princess Rosalind of Autoura. My family has lived here since the First Age."

Princess Rosalind? So was that Sleeping Beauty's actual name?

"Listen, I know this is going to come as a shock to you, but the world isn't the way you think it is. Your world, the world you know, doesn't exist anymore. Please, just let me go and I'll explain what I mean." Rosalind lets go of my shirt and waits for me to continue. "There's a legend about you. You're the princess who was cursed as a child and put into a deep sleep of a hundred years when she pricked her finger on a spindle."

"My father kept that secret well hidden. No one other than he, mine mother, and the wise woman knew. How hast you cometh across this knowledge?"

"Because after the hundred years passed you never woke up. You see, I don't know if you know this, but when you fell asleep, everyone else here did too. But then they all woke up once the time had passed."

"Who told you that?"

"One of my ancestors worked as a servant for your father. After you remained asleep and the King grew old, he charged my ancestor to keep watch over you. In fact, there's a rumour that's how my family got our last name. Kepler… Keeper. They seem pretty similar to me."

I reach up to scratch my head, but my hand never reaches there because Rosalind has knocked and pinned me to the ground.

"Owe! What was that for?" I cry out as I try to wrestle against her grip. She forces me down hard and the necklace she's wearing whacks me in the face. I'm about to call out in pain again, but Rosalind starts speaking.

"I do not trust what 'tis you speak of, so I certainly do not believe you will not do me harm."

"I'm not going to hurt you! I don't even know how to!"

Rosalind must hear some sort of sincerity in my voice because she gets off of me. I move to a sitting position slowly and watch as she walks over to her bed and grabs the sheet off it.

"What are you doing?" I ask just before she kneels down in front of me. Before I know it, she's tied my hands up against her bed frame. I tug against it; it's sturdy. I'm not going anywhere. "Oh come on, really?"

"I do not trust you."

"But I'm telling you the truth. Honestly, do I look like I'm from wherever you're from?" I pause for a second. "What time period are you from?"

"I think you very well know that," Rosalind says and begins to pace in front of me. "Now, where is Father? Or Mother?"

"They're dead! They've been dead for hundreds of years!"

"Alright, fool, let's say I choose to partake in your little game. What year is't then? Do tell, do tell."

"It's 2015."

"That's preposterous."

"Don't believe me? Take a look in my pants pocket." I say ad when Rosalind looks at me suspiciously, I continue. "Really? What can I do? My hands are tied up."

She bends down and pulls my cell phone out of my pocket.

"What is this?"

"It's a phone. You can call people on it. Or send messages to another phone like it."

"Now you are just telling fables."

"Or my clothes! What about my clothes, huh? Or, or how about this? Take a look at where we are. Betcha this doesn't look like home to you."

"This is insanity. Fool, you hast had your fun. Now speak. Where are mine father and mother?"

I sigh. "Do you really wish to see them?"

"Ay! Hast I not made mine self clear?"

"Alright, Princess. I'll take you to your parents. But I will need for you to release me."

Princess Rosalind unties me and steps back.

"Follow me."

I lead Rosalind through the house to outside and am surprised when she doesn't comment of the strangeness of the home. Though I've never set foot inside the castle, I highly doubt it looks like this old rickety thing. When we step outside it's raining pretty hard. Rosalind is walking a few steps behind me. In a way, I can't believe that this girl is the girl from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale. I mean yes, she's beautiful and her backstory seems to be correct, but this girl kicks so much more ass than I expected. Of course, the Brothers Grimm didn't manage to get the ending to the story correct either, so who's to say they didn't get other parts wrong too?

"Fool, where do you bring me? I wish to see—"

"I know who you want to see. And I'm taking you to see them." I cut her off and continue walking. I really hope that where I'm going is actually true. When I was young, I remember my grandfather telling me a story about the old King and Queen, the parents of Sleeping Beauty, and that upon their death they were buried on the same land in which their sleeping daughter lay so that they could be with her for all eternity. I only hoped that my grandfather was right with his story, so that Princess Rosalind would finally believe what I was telling her.

It takes us a while to reach the castle in the rain, but we make it eventually.

"We're here." I say and stop walking.

"I asked you to bring me to my parents."

"And I have. Take a look."

"When I speak with mine father, you will be…" Rosalind's voice trails off.

I watch as she takes a few steps forward and sinks to her knees in front of the gravestones. She looks over her shoulder and back up at me. There are tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Tis true, is't not? Everything you spoke of is true."

"I'm sorry," I say quietly and watch as Princess Rosalind of Autoura weeps for the loss of her family.


End file.
